You may have noticed the re-motored mainline class 56 chassis in a earlier post. Well, here is the loco it was for. Please note that these photos include the problem I had with glue and finger prints, requiring a touch up of the cab roofs and the sides. If I had been more careful I could have got away without this. As it is, I may need to re-spray it. As it stands, the only bit of the original paint job that has altered has been a re-spray of the ends in Vauxhall yellow, replacing the poor original.

I have some shawplan roof fan grills, just deciding if to add them or not. A few things are left to do. Sand pipes front and rear and some lead ballast needs adding.

Other than that, I think these old mainline locos scrub up nicely. And mine will pull a full sized load (or will do when it`s got it`s ballast).

I was looking at my 31 locos, and specifically at the underframe. The lima underframe is good, but the fuel tank in the centre is too wide so as to fit in the big metal weight. When you compair it to the super detailed Hornby version, you can see the difference. I have been replacing them with tanks taken off of mazac victims, but I ddecided to experiment using the original battery box sides. I cut away the tank, leaving the battery box sides, and then cut a piece of 60 thou plasticard 17mm wide, fabricated the tank and the battery boxes from that, then glued them to the lima frame. These photos show the end result, which looks good for so little effort. I think this would work on the railroad 31, if it uses the same tanks as the lima version (don`t know as I don`t have one).

Here you see the modified lima next to the SD Hornby, then the modified version with original lima bogies, Hornby SD bogies, and against the original lima version.